The Classical Music Industry

8 Lifespan Perspective Theory and (Classical) Musicians’ Careers

Dawn Bennett and Sophie Hennekam

Empirical research on musicians’ work has begun to receive greater attention in recent years.¹ These studies show that music work is variously precarious, multi-genre, and internally driven, but there is little research that compares the work of classically-trained and other musicians. To enable such a comparison, there is a need to capture the dynamics of musicians’ work across the career lifespan. This chapter draws on detailed empirical research that employed “lifespan” perspective theory—specifically, selection, optimization, and compensation (SOC) theory—to understand musicians’ work in early, mid-, and late-career. The study was the first to ...